French Youths Fire On Police In Overnight Clashes

About 100 French youths clashed with police overnight, shooting at police, torching cars, a leisure centre and a nursery school in the northern city of Amiens, a government official said.

Police reinforcements were being dispatched and Interior Minister Manuel Valls was due to visit the city, where two nights of violence were apparently sparked by tension over spot police checks on residents.

“Sixteen police were injured, some by buckshot fire,” Thomas Lavielle, an official at the prefect’s office in the region, told i>TELE TV station.

The Amiens suburb which erupted in violence has already been identified as needing extra policing by Valls’ Socialist government.